A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

Consolidation of Power 483

bringing Britain to its knees, a series of remarkable victories enabled
Napoleon to forge a great empire, the largest in Europe since that of Rome.

Establishment of the Consulate

With the fall of the Directory in 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte, at the age of
thirty, became first consul, the most powerful man in France in a new,
stronger executive authority of three consuls, replacing the five directors.
The Constitution of 1799, promulgated in December, gave lip service to uni­
versal suffrage, but reflected the authoritarian character Sieyes intended.
Indirect election for each political institution reduced the political body
of the nation to a small number of notables. A Senate, appointed by the
consuls, chose men from a list of 6,000 “notabilities” to serve in a Tri­

bunate. A Council of State, whose members were appointed by the first con­

sul, would propose legislation. The Tribunate would discuss the proposed

legislation, and a Legislative Body would vote on the laws but could not

debate them. There was more than a little truth to the oft-repeated story

that one man who asked what was in the new constitution received the reply,

“Napoleon Bonaparte.” The constitution was submitted to voters in a

plebiscite (voters could vote either yes or no). More than 99 percent of the

all-male electorate approved the document. The plebiscite became a funda­

mental Napoleonic political institution, embodying his principle of “author­

ity from above, confidence from below.”

The Consulate provided political stability by institutionalizing strong exec­

utive authority. France’s districts (de'partements) each received an appointed

prefect, whose powers, delegated by the central government in Paris, sur­

passed those of the intendants of the Bourbon monarchs. Napoleon’s

brother Lucien, as minister of interior, extended effective executive authority

to the most distant corners of the nation, curtailing royalist and Jacobin

opposition. Napoleon ruthlessly suppressed the press, reducing the number

of newspapers in Paris from seventy-three to thirteen, cowing survivors with

threats, or winning their allegiance with bribes.

The Concordat

Napoleon made peace with the Catholic Church, bringing it under state

supervision. Deep hostility remained between priests who had sworn alle­

giance to the nation during the Revolution—the 4 juring” clergy—and those

who had refused. Influenced by the Enlightenment, Napoleon believed the

Church should not have an institutional role in the affairs of state. But he

was also a cynical pragmatist. “There is only one way to encourage morality,”

he once said, “and that is to reestablish religion. Society cannot exist without

some being richer than others, and this inequality cannot exist without reli­

gion. When one man is dying of hunger next door to another who is stuffing

himself with food, the poor man simply cannot accept the disparity unless